Case Study: Massage Warehouse Cuts Delivery Costs
Problem: Massage Warehouse was receiving delivery fines from shipping companies and returned packages due to incorrect customer address data.
Solution: The company implemented QAS’ software to validate addresses using U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data.
Results: Delivery surcharges dropped by 63 percent, staff productivity significantly increased, and customer satisfaction grew due to faster delivery times.
When both delivery surcharges imposed by shipping companies and the number of returned packages began to rise due to incorrect address formats, Massage Warehouse realized it needed to adjust its customer address data management. For example, the difference between “Strt.” and “St.” as an abbreviation for “Street” was costing the company money.
“We saw an increased cost of UPS, USPS and FedEx penalties,” says Ryan Wheeler, technology director at Massage Warehouse, a Norcross, Ga.-based mail-order company that sells merchandise for the massage therapy and chiropractic industries.
The company’s technology staff tried QuickAddress Pro for Ecometry, a solution from QAS, a Charlestown, Mass.-based address management solutions provider. The software validates addresses against USPS data as they’re entered into a database.
The catalog team immediately liked the results: Penalties decreased by 63 percent by having addresses in correct formats. In addition, there was less duplicate account creation. In fact, Massage Warehouse was so pleased with the software that it also adopted QuickAddress for the Web, which automatically checks address validity and format before Web visitors submit their information.
Additional Benefits
The company saw a swift return on investment; the solutions paid for themselves within three months. Says Wheeler, “It was definitely worth it.”
Also, QuickAddress’ feature automatically fills address fields from USPS data files, thereby speeding up Massage Warehouse’s data entries. “What would have taken [someone] 30 seconds to input is now done in 10. Fifty typed characters is reduced to 10,” says Wheeler. “That was a benefit we weren’t even expecting to be significant, but it made a huge difference.”
This accelerated process enabled call center productivity to increase 10 to 20 percent. “If a salesperson takes 60 calls per day and is able to finish taking orders 20 percent faster, that means he or she can take up to 20 percent more calls,” explains Wheeler. “The potential gain from 12 more calls per day is enormous.”
Finally, Wheeler says the company received much positive feedback. “We saw increased customer satisfaction [in delivery times], which really is the bottom line.”
